Sláinte Mhaith!

Today was St. Patrick's Day, a good day to wear green, drink Guinness, and pretend to be Irish.  Silly as this sounds, it was a good excuse for me to get nostalgic and think back on Marianne and I's trip to Ireland last July.  It truly was an awesome trip.  Marianne sent me a bunch of her photos from the trip and I had fun looking through them.  Oh, the memories...



There was the time when I felt a weird cumpulsion to hide behind this post in Cork.  I am also amused that there's a sign on the post for an Easter Rebellion commemoration.


And then there was the time I partied with these statues at our hostel in Dublin.



And then there was the time I crossed that trecherous rope bridge in Carrick-a-rede.



And of course, at every bar we went to, Marianne and I declared it METAL.


At our hostel in Belfast with Kelly from Canada and Jean-Marc from Miami, who I liked because he loved Anthony Bourdain even more than I did.  He's a chef  and when I brought up Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, he exclaimed, "Oh my God, I read that book and thought, 'Holy shit, this is my life!'"  He also told me the night before that I was an "awesome girl" because I was the only one "not giving him shit".  The night before was pretty memorable, even though all that happened was a bunch of us hostel people hanging out in the back drinking vodka and beer.  I think a game of Kings was played.  Someone else got out a guitar and someone else played rap music and a bunch of people were talking and kicking a soccer ball around.  Oh, Paddy's, you were a weird and magical place.  I was possibly the only one not hungover in this photo, though I suppose it's hard to tell based on my facial expression.



And of course, what blog post about Ireland would be complete without the obligatory photo of a pint of Guinness?

At the end of each day, I took my Flip camera and recorded Marianne's final thoughts of the day, which we called our "Anthony Bourdain moment".  Here's my favorite one, at some fish and chips place in Dublin, the night before I was to fly home.

Year End Roundup: 2009

2009.

I think I might've been mistaken about you.

In my head, I thought I couldn't wait to be rid of you. That you were one of the worst years ever. The economy was crumbling. I had a horribly stressful job that I hated. Michael Jackson died. Creed got back together. People freaked out over health care reform. Glenn Beck became creepily popular. I began to worry a lot about the future.

Then I began looking at photos I had taken over this past year. Of all the things I've done and all the time I've spent with friends and the adventures we've had. And then I realized that I was wrong about this year. I had let too many little things get me down, too many things I couldn't control.

This year was actually really great. I've done many things I'd been too scared to do before and gone places I've never been able to before and had many, many good times.

So, let's epic-ly review...2009. In pictures!

JANUARY

I rang in the New Year, as usual, with Linnea. This time at a big party at Mallary's Arlington house.


January marked a few significant events. The most memorable of them involving a trip up to New York with Megan and Skye, where we watched ourselves get a brand spankin' new president. Other people migrated to our home base of the DC area to watch the inauguration. But we wanted to be different. Instead we watched it in Times Square, on all the huge big screens. Sure, there was weirdly no sound on any of the screens, but it was just as cool.



It was also during that trip where we saw this young wizard naked on Broadway (and I've never been able to watch a Harry Potter movie in quite the same way again).


FEBRUARY

One of my favorite things in February was my trip to Seattle, marking the first time I've ever taken a trip alone. It was scary as hell, but it was worth it and I had an amazing time.


I also got to see Dan Savage in person twice in one week!


MARCH

March was a good month. It marked many things. Including the first time that we went out for St. Patrick's Day, as a group.


It was also marked the anniversary of the birth of that dark forest of a man, Mr. William Shatner. I went and played Shatner-themed Cranium (dubbed "Crane"-ium, after Denny Crane of Boston Legal) at Lisa's fiance's apartment.


Megan and I took in a lot of events at the Kennedy Center. We also took in a lot of the view from their terrace.


Jenny and Chris also came to visit and I was reminded how much I missed having them around on a near-daily basis.


APRIL

April. I got to go to Megan's and make festive Easter cupcakes for the first time. Seriously, aren't these adorable?


It also began to get nice and warm again, which meant I could spend more time outdoors with friends.


MAY

May was a huge month. I went to Philadelphia one day, to watch a kinetic sculpture derby race.


And then a couple of days after that I went to Boston to go see The National.


On the way to the concert, I walked by Fenway Park. This would've been really cool if I was a Red Sox fan.


JUNE

June was also a crazy month. I saw a warehouse full of art in DC.


Mallary and I drove 6 hours to Watkins Glen, New York, to camp out with other crazed fans and see The Mountain Goats play in a barn.


Mallary and I also tried out Ethiopian beer for the first time, which was delish.


JULY

July was EPIC. Mostly because of Marianne and I's trip to Ireland.



I also moved out of my mom's house and Skye and I moved into a big, grown-up apartment together!


Boaz, one of my rats, passed away suddenly. I still miss his spazziness and complete inability to sit still.


AUGUST

August involved getting settled in to the new apartment.


Megan, Skye, Megan's mom, and I also went down to Colonial Williamsburg for a weekend. It was the first time I've ever been there, even though I'm a Virginian and you think I would've gone like...a bajillionty times by now.


We got to see the American Revolution begin, as it does every day in Colonial Williamsburg...promptly at noon.


Megan left for Morocco, and I thought that I would have to spend the entire next year missing her (but then she came back a year early and my heart was whole again!)


SEPTEMBER

In September, Skye's friend Allison came to stay with us while looking for a place and a job in DC.


Megan, Anna, and I went to New York to see some Broadway shows


Though sadly, not Spiderman, which has yet to open.


Marianne moved to Spain to be a teacher, and so we had our last ever meal at Tippy's Taco in Fairfax. I really miss Marianne and I's Tippy's trips, which we would take whenever she was home from college.


Marlowe also passed away this month. I'll always miss Marlowe, even if I get rats again. Marlowe would've made a great ambassador for rats. He was so wonderfully affectionate and sweet.



OCTOBER

We were officially into fall now, which brought many things, including a trip back to Fredericksburg to visit old college haunts.


Burlesque shows...


The Equality March in DC (which actually did pass marriage equality legislation, huzzah!)


And of course, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. Symbolized here by a carved orange pepper (Harris Teeter was out of pumpkins).


NOVEMBER

I think I suffered from a lack of picture-taking initiative in November. It seems as if the only pictures I have are from the camera on my phone from concerts I went to. But I did go to a crap-ton of concerts in November!

Public Enemy (sorry, it's with an iPhone so it's a very dark, blurry pic of Flava Flav...but you can see the big-ass clock!)


The Mountain Goats...the 3rd time I'd seen them that year.


And Saul Williams, as his alter-ego Niggy Tardust


I also saw Cold Cave and Metric in November, but sadly have no photos of either or those. Sigh.

DECEMBER

And now we finish off the year!

We had not one, but two snow-storms this month. The later, being the more intense, blizzard-y, 2-foot of snow affair, referred to nation-wide (or Twitter-wide, at least) as the great Snowpocalypse.


Megan turned 24!


And Skye and I put up our very own Christmas tree!


So that's my pictorial year in review! It's actually been a pretty fun year I think, and I've realized that I've actually done a lot of cool stuff, met some neat new people, and had plenty of hijinx.

So here's to 2009 and hoping that 2010 will be even more epic!

Things To Do In Belfast

Recently, my friend Marianne and I took an epic trip to Ireland. This included a visit to the city Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Despite the fact that Belfast is best known for its somewhat tumultuous history, we immediately fell in love with this place. In case you've never been and were wondering, "Gee, what does one do in Belfast?"...I've created a few brief tips and suggestions.

First, you could visit the headquarters of Sinn Fein, which apparently has a gift shop (closed unfortunately on Sundays, when we went to scout it out).

You could go see the Peace Wall, which is a bit ironically named, considering it acts to separate/segregate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. Apparently there are over 20 of these "peace lines" in Belfast. Some have gates which close every night, effectively locking people in...and out. You can sign this wall, though, which tons of people have, which is kind of cool.

"Our divided society can be a better place to live."

In a similar vein, you can see the many, many interesting (and some slightly unsettling) political murals, which line many a wall in Belfast. The following two are on Falls Road (Catholic/Republican neighborhood). This one is from the "Solidarity Wall", which has murals of the Palestinian conflict, Fredericks Douglas, and Che Guevara.

This one is right outside the Sinn Fein office. It's of Bobby Sands, a famous IRA volunteer who died on a hunger strike in 1981.

This one is on Sandy Row, a Protestant/Loyalist neighborhood. It's helpful in case you've forgotten what neighborhood you're in.
From around Shankill Road, another Protestant/Loyalist neighbor. We saw this one while on a "Black Cab" tour, where a cabbie takes you around different parts of the city and talks about the conflict and The Troubles and all that jazz. The cabbie stopped and let us look around and see all a bunch of the murals in the area. When we came back, he asked "Did you see the gunman that was following you?" We immediately freaked out a little bit, but it turns out he meant the gunman on this mural. It's a bit creepy because it's like those paintings with the eyes that follow you - no matter what direction you're facing or where you're looking, the gun is indeed always pointed at you.

Also in Belfast - you can learn worthwhile lessons about products from bus stop advertisements, like this one. Apparently Tango causes hair loss AND casual sexism.
So, after you're done walking around segregated communities, listening to this city's (still) depressing history, well...you might need to go get some drinks. Lavery's is a good place for this.

And of course, while traveling in Belfast (or really, anywhere for that matter), you must declare metal with random foreigners!

This has been an edition of Lindsey's travel tips. Goodnight, folks.